Alright, pull up a chair because I'm about to tell you something that I have absolutely no business telling you, and I'm going to tell you anyway because I love you and also because humility is a virtue and the universe has a very consistent way of reminding me of that.
This is a true story. The names have not been changed because there are no innocent parties, including me. Especially me.
Settle in.
It was a Saturday.
Now, you have to understand something about this particular Saturday. It was one of those rare, golden Saturdays where everything aligned. I had gotten a full eight hours of sleep, which at my age is basically a miracle on the level of a biblical event. My skin was doing something cooperative for once. I had found, at the back of my closet, an outfit that I had forgotten I owned and it fit beautifully and I want you to understand what that does to a woman's confidence.
I was feeling myself. Completely, unreasonably, dangerously feeling myself.
My friend Denise had invited a group of us to a little backyard gathering. Nothing fancy, she said. Just a few people, some food, some drinks, good music. Come casual, she said.
I should have known right then.
When someone says come casual, you bring a covered dish and your good flip flops and you expect to be home by nine thirty. That is the correct interpretation of come casual.
I, however, had decided that come casual meant come casually fabulous. Because of the outfit. And the eight hours of sleep. And the skin cooperation. You understand.
I arrived at Denise's backyard feeling like the main character of a movie about a woman who has her life completely together.
I was holding a beautiful charcuterie board that I had assembled myself that morning, and I want you to know that I had watched no fewer than four tutorial videos to prepare for this moment. There were three kinds of cheese. There were cornichons, which are just fancy tiny pickles, but I arranged them in a little fan shape and I felt like an artist. There were grapes that I had individually washed and dried and placed with intention.
I walked through that gate like I was arriving at a function that had been waiting for me specifically.
And then.
THEN.
I stepped directly, completely, and with my whole body weight, into what I can only describe as the most aggressive sprinkler that has ever existed on this earth or any other.
Now when I say I got wet, I want you to truly understand the scale of what I'm telling you.
I was not lightly misted. I was not caught on the edge of the spray in a way that was inconvenient but manageable. I am telling you that this sprinkler — this demonic, perfectly timed, personally targeted sprinkler — hit me like it had been waiting. Like it had a grudge. Like somewhere in its little mechanical heart it had seen me coming with my charcuterie board and my cooperative skin and my forgotten-closet outfit and it had decided, absolutely not.
The board went one way. The cornichons went another. The individually washed and dried and intentionally placed grapes scattered across Denise's patio like they were fleeing the scene, which honestly I respect because I wanted to flee the scene too.
I stood there completely soaked, holding nothing but the empty board, while approximately eleven people watched in a silence that lasted just long enough to be truly devastating before absolutely everyone, including Denise, including her seventy-year-old mother who I had never met before in my life, dissolved into the kind of laughter that bends people in half.
And here is the part that really gets me.
The sprinkler stopped. Immediately. Like it had accomplished its mission and was done with me. Just — click. Off. As if to say, my work here is finished.
I stood there dripping in my beautiful outfit, hair destroyed, dignity somewhere on the patio with the cornichons, and I had a choice to make.
I could be mortified. I could laugh it off on the outside while quietly dying on the inside. I could make a graceful excuse and go home and never speak of this again.
OR.
I could throw my head back and laugh until I cried, which is what I did, which is what you should always do, which is the only correct response to being personally attacked by a sprinkler at a backyard gathering while holding a fancy charcuterie board you spent forty-five minutes assembling.
Denise's seventy-year-old mother — Miss Carol, God bless her — brought me a towel and a glass of wine and sat down next to me and said, and I quote, honey, that is the funniest thing I have seen in thirty years and I want you to know you are my favorite person here.
Miss Carol and I are still friends to this day.
Now. Here is what Mom learned from this experience, and yes there are lessons, there are always lessons, that's just how I'm built.
Lesson one: Hubris is a sprinkler waiting to happen.
The moment you arrive somewhere feeling just a little too good about yourself, the universe has a way of evening things out. This is not the universe being cruel. This is the universe keeping you delightfully, necessarily human. The outfit can be great. The skin can cooperate. You are still allowed to feel wonderful. Just maybe look where you're walking.
Lesson two: The charcuterie board was never going to survive contact with real life and that's okay.
I spent forty-five minutes on that board. Forty-five minutes of careful, tutorial-informed, cornichon-fanning effort. And it lasted approximately four minutes in the real world before the real world had its way with it. How many times have we done this? Prepared something perfectly, presented ourselves perfectly, arranged everything just so — and then life happened anyway? The board is gone. The party was still wonderful. The memory is better than any perfectly intact charcuterie board could ever be.
Lesson three: The ability to laugh at yourself is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
Not in a self-deprecating, I'm-so-pathetic kind of way. In a genuine, warm, isn't-life-ridiculous kind of way. The people who can laugh at themselves — really laugh, from the belly, at their own perfectly human disasters — are the most magnetic people in any room. They are safe to be around. They make other people feel like their own disasters are survivable. They turn the worst moments into the best stories.
And the best stories are really what we're all here for, aren't they?
Lesson four: Miss Carol was worth every drop of water.
Some of the best people in your life are going to find you at your most ridiculous. Soaking wet, grapes everywhere, holding an empty board, laughing at yourself in someone's backyard. And they are going to hand you a towel and a glass of wine and decide you are their favorite person there.
Those people are treasures. Recognize them. Keep them.
I think about that Saturday a lot, actually.
Not with embarrassment — that faded about thirty seconds after Miss Carol handed me the wine. I think about it because it was one of those moments that reminded me not to take myself so seriously. Not to grip so tightly to the carefully assembled presentation of things. Not to be so precious about the cornichons.
Life is going to sprinkler you. Regularly and without warning and sometimes at the absolute worst possible moment. The outfit is going to get wet. The board is going to go flying. The grapes are going to scatter.
And you are going to have a choice in that moment about who you want to be.
Be the person who laughs. Be the person who accepts the towel. Be the person who sits down with Miss Carol and lets the whole ridiculous beautiful disaster of it become a story you tell for years.
Because I promise you — nobody remembers the perfect charcuterie board.
They remember the woman who got soaked by a sprinkler and laughed until she cried and made everyone at the party love her for it.
Be that woman.
And for the love of everything, watch where you're walking.
Love, Mom 🧡
